In the Dead Camel Range near Fallon, Churchill County,
Nevada, paleobotany enthusiasts have had, for decades, an enjoyable
and educational experience fossil-prospecting for 12.6-million-year-old
plant remains in a sedimentary rock deposit geologists call the
Middle Miocene Desert Peak Formation. The popular, paleontologically
significant site lies at an elevation of 3,900 feet on the slopes
of an unnamed dry wash whose erosive power through the ages has
exposed a series of fossiliferous siliceous shales, occasionally
interbedded with intrusive volcanic basalt and basaltic tuffs.
Despite the fact that the sedimentary sequence has been invaded
through time by such disruptive volcanic activity, the oldest
shale accumulations in the Desert Peak Formation, or those beds
exposed lowest in the local stratigraphic section, have continued
to provide both amateur plant seekers and professional paleobotanists
alike with an abundance of nicely preserved leaves from a variety
of deciduous trees and evergreen live oaks, in addition to samaras
(winged seeds), needles and twigs from several types of conifers.

In all, paleobotanists have identified some 22 species
of ancient plants from the Middle Miocene Desert Peak Formation.
The flora list includes such varieties as evergreen canyon live
oak, European aspen, paper birch, Utah juniper, white fir and
Giant Sequoia--all of which contrast dramatically with the desert
extremes of the Fallon district today. The fossils provide incontrovertible
evidence that 12.6 million years ago an extensive oak-juniper
woodland thrived near the lower reaches of a mixed conifer forest
in a region subjected to intermittent volcanic activity.

All of the fossil localities frequented by paleobotany
enthusiasts in the Dead Camel Range have been open to hobby inspection
and collecting in the recent past, at least; when last field
checked, the fossil plants still occurred on Public Lands administered
by the Bureau of Land Management (a significant portion of the
Dead Camel Range does happen to lie within the boundaries of
the Fallon Naval Air Station). This means that visitors were
able to collect, for personal use only, a wonderful selection
of Middle Miocene fossil plants, specimens which may neither
be bartered nor sold. Also, collectors had to be careful not
to abuse their privileges there. The operative attitude one had
to bear in mind was that the famous Dead Camel Range fossil plant
site remained open to the public only because the local landowners,
across whose property visitors needed to pass in order to reach
the fossil region, recognized the great recreational value of
their vast desert surroundings. They encouraged visitors to experience
the rewards of back-country explorations amidst the challenging
austerity of the Great Basin Desert. Nevertheless, they maintained
a stern vigilance over the natural domain. Had a clear pattern
of disregard for property emerged, rest assured that the Fallon
Flora in the Dead Camel Range would not only have become off
limits to all amateur fossil collectors, but also to every visiting
desert enthusiast, in general.

The Fallon Flora occurs in the basal portion of the Middle
Miocene Desert Peak Formation--a geologic rock unit that has
been dated by radiometric methods at 12.6 million years old--which
consists of around 500 feet of thick-bedded siliceous shale (in
beds one to five inches thick, on average) that weathers to shades
of yellowish-brown, brownish-red and maroon. Unweathered beds
of the fossiliferous, fine-grained shales often have a pale olive-green
coloration. The shale frequently disintegrates through erosion
to form rubble-strewn slopes, a characteristic style of weathering
which masks the true lithologic nature of the underlying strata.
Interbedded with the sedimentary rocks are a few minor volcanic
contaminants--basalt flows and basaltic tuff--which have locally
metamorphosed the shales, sometimes obliterating any fossil material
they might have originally contained. But this is not always
the case. Some of the better-preserved fossil plant remains actually
occur in highly altered shales, demonstrating here at least that
fossil plants can often withstand a great degree of geologic
stress and survive to tell their fascinating paleobotanical tales.

The fossil-bearing shales are clearly of lacustrine, or
lake, origin, and the plants that were preserved in them most
likely accumulated near the shoreline. There is little evidence
to support the idea that currents carried the ancient plant specimens
far from the margin of the lake into which they were swept by
repeated storm waters over the course of tens of thousands of
years, at the very least. If they had truly been preserved through
the action of lake currents, the plant material would certainly
be found as scattered, rare remains throughout the sedimentary
deposit, not as a complete fossil flora concentrated within a
relatively narrow shale horizon.

At the primary fossil locality situated along the unnamed
dry wash in the Dead Camel Range, the fossil plants are fairly
common. They are typically preserved as pale brown to dark reddish-brown
impressions that stand out in bold contrast on a paler-colored
matrix of yellowish-brown to pale olive-green shale. But, as
the sedimentary deposits are traced away from that principal
accumulation of Middle Miocene plants, collectors learned that
the once-productive shale rapidly turns barren of organic remains:
all fossils simply disappear due to the mysterious nature of
sedimentary deposition some 12.6 million years ago. The fossil
locality apparently corresponds to a favorable position along
the bottom of the ancient Middle Miocene lake, a place where
plant debris--transported/swept into the waters from the surrounding
countryside--was buried rapidly by tons upon tons of inflowing
mud and silt: organic tissues were obviously covered completely
before any significant decay could begin.

To locate the best-preserved fossil plants in the Fallon
Flora, the highly indurated siliceous mud within which they lie
hidden had to be successfully split, revealing the Middle Miocene
treasures to their first light of day in some 12.6 million years.
This certainly involved a lot of paleontological dedication and
patience, not to mention hard work, but the ultimate reward of
many perfect, complete evergreen live oak leaves and an occasional
conifer samara, among other botanic types, created a burning
anticipation for an encounter with the distant geologic past.

The basic idea was to first remove large chunks of potential
leaf-yielding shale from the Desert Peak Formation exposures,
then, using a good quality geology hammer (the steel must be
tempered properly or the metal will spall off with shrapnel-like
ferocity, potentially inflicting serious injuries), one proceeded
to strike the shale chunks along their natural bedding planes,
where the mud and silt had accumulated layer by layer to form
sedimentary rock. If nothing significant popped out at you, another
try with a different piece of shale could reasonably be expected
to net an excellent specimen or two. The quality specimens were
indeed present there, even if it took a measure of dedication
to recover them. One needed to remember that this was an old
and famous fossil locality--a favorite of rockhounding locals
from the Fallon and Reno areas, in particular. The upshot was
that after decades of intensive collecting by amateurs and professional
paleobotanists alike, it was indeed remarkable that the Fallon
site continued to yield such a reliable selection of fossil plant
specimens.

The history of collecting in the Dead Camel Range goes
all the way back to the first half of the 1900s. In the summer
of 1936, two amateur collectors from Fallon, Laura Mills and
Ray Alcorn, brought fossil leaves from the Dead Camel Range to
the attention of Ralph W. Chaney, one of the more renowned paleobotanists
of the 20th century. After making a preliminary assessment of
the find, Chaney handed the project over to Daniel I. Axelrod.
Several weeks later Axelrod accompanied Mills and Alcorn to the
discovery site, or what has since become known as the primary
fossil locality along an unnamed dry wash in the Dead Camel Range.
They collected a modest supply of fossil plants at that time--a
large enough selection, at least, for Axelrod to determine that
the area demanded a formal paleobotanical interpretation, preferably
in a scientific monograph. Mills and Alcorn knew that they had
discovered a productive fossil plant horizon. When they learned
of the genuine scientific importance of it, they generously presented
Axelrod with the large, extensive collection of fossils they
had already taken from the locality, a collection amounting to
several hundred specimens, according to Alcorn.

Axelrod returned to the Fallon site several times over
the succeeding years, accompanied by his wife, Nancy Robinson
Axelrod and his long-time field companion, Robert E. Smith. In
time, they had amassed an exhaustive collection of some 1,390
specimens from the Desert Peak Formation--enough fossil material
to allow a definitive paleobotanical treatise on the subject.
Axelrod finally published his findings concerning the Fallon
Flora in a formal scientific monograph.

All told, Axelrod described 22 species of fossil plants
from the Fallon locality. The most common specimens encountered
were fragmentary and rare complete leaves belonging to an evergreen
live oak, scientifically called Quercus pollardiana. It
is identical in every major delineating leaf characteristic to
the living canyon live oak, or maul oak, Quercus chrysolepis
native to western flanks of the southern Sierra Nevada. Even
though the oaks appear indistinguishable, most American paleobotanists
give the Miocene variety a different scientific species name
in order to emphasize the great distance in geologic time between
the fossil and modern species of the same plant. European paleobotanists,
on the other hand, prefer to retain the modern scientific names
for fossil species which appear identical to those still living.

After canyon live oak, in decreasing order of relative
abundance, the next eleven most common forms encountered in the
Middle Miocene Desert Peak Formation were: the interior live
oak (Quercus wislinoides); an extinct water oak, related
to the modern White Oak (Quercus simulata); the Brewer
spruce (Picea sonomensis); Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron
chaneyi); White Fir (Abies concoloides); Oregon grape
(Mahonia reticulata); a Lemmons willow (Salix knowltoni);
a second species of Mahonia, Leatherleaf Mahonia (Mahonia
marginata); Pacific madrone (Arbutus matthesi); Arizona
ash (Fraxinus alcorni), named after Ray Alcorn, who made
many of the early collections from the Fallon Flora; and Ponderosa
pine (Pinus florissanti). The 10 rarest species found
included a Black cottonwood (Populus eotremuloides); a
sandbar willow (Salix payettensis); California nutmeg
(Torreya nancyana); the paper birch (Betula thor);
Curlleaf mountain-mahogany (Cercocarpus linearfolius);
Utah juniper (Juniperus nevadensis); Japanese scholar
tree (Sophora spokanensis); western redcedar--which is
in reality a cypress (Thuja dimorpha); a European aspen
(Populus subwashoensis); and the common cattail (Typha
lesquereuxi).

The Fallon Flora in the Dead Camel Range records an oak-juniper
woodland community near the lower reaches of a mixed-conifer
forest, similar to modern plant associations that inhabit the
western flanks of the southern Sierra Nevada in California. The
late paleobotanist Daniel I. Axelrod believed that the fossils
accumulated in a rather small, localized lake basin into which
streams dumped detritus from a terrain dominated to the south
by rhyolite cones of moderate elevations. That kind of ecological
setting, he reasoned, permitted coniferous varieties, usually
restricted to the uplands, to descend the cooler, moister, north-facing
slopes and enter the fossil record along with evergreen live
oaks and species of deciduous trees and shrubs which preferred
the lowlands. Plant varieties nearest the shoreline and along
the bordering stream courses included Arizona ash, Black cottonwood,
sandbar willow and water oak. Drier, sunnier sites at slightly
higher elevations supported an extensive oak-juniper woodland
dominated by canyon live oak, interior live oak, Utah juniper
and Pacific madrone. And the nearby forest community included
specimens of white fir, Brewer spruce, Ponderosa pine, canyon
live oak and Giant Sequoia.

Axelrod concluded that the Fallon Flora received as mush
as 25 inches of rain per year. This is in glaring contrast to
the scant six or seven inches annually delivered to the area
today, almost all of it falling during the winter months. Yet,
12.6 million years ago, there was certainly ample summer rainfall
over the ancestral Fallon basin--at least enough to support such
sensitive botanical indicators as paper birch, Oregon grape and
Japanese scholar tree. Middle Miocene times were probably mild
and comfortable, with a frost-free season ranging from seven
to eight months; today, the frost-free season barely lasts four
months, and the Fallon district experiences extended episodes
of wicked winter chilling.

That remarkable contrast in environments is on display
in the rocks of the Dead Camel Range near Fallon, Nevada. Here,
along a narrow dry gully in the middle of the Great Basin Desert
(a land of brutal weather extremes and austerity of plant life)
is direct proof of what once existed here in this part of west-central
Nevada some 12.6 million years ago: The lake-originated shales,
exposed by the powers of erosion, contain the fossilized remains
of a widespread oak-juniper woodland that intermingled with a
rich mixed-conifer forest. It was an environment in which canyon
live oak thrived in proximity to white fir and western redcedar
and Giant Sequoia.

Today, the volcanic peaks of the Dead Camel Range rise
above the fossil locality: rugged, barren outcroppings of solidified
lava that postdate the accumulation of fossil plants in the Desert
Peak Formation below. There are no trees atop the summits, neither
can a single variety be found along their slopes--yet, the shadows
they cast across the tortured desert landscape cross a place
where old sediments hide an age of green.

Fallon Weather:
Courtesy The Weather Underground

On-Site
Images

Fossil Plant Locality In The Dead Camel Range

Click on the
images for larger pictures. At left is the view roughly due west
into the heart of the Dead Camel Range near Fallon, Nevada, where
a fossil seeker searches for 12.6 million-year-old plant remains
in the Middle Miocene Desert Peak Formation. The middle image
is a view looking back eastward from the primary fossil plant
locality in the Dead Camel Range; here, a paleobotany enthusiast
explores a fossiliferous exposure of the Desert Peak Formation,
which yields 22 species of ancient plant remains, including the
leaves of evergreen live oak, in addition to many deciduous varieties
and several kinds of conifers. At right is a closer view of the
fossil-bearing shales in the Desert Peak Formation; a collector
gets down to business picking through the fine-grained sedimentary
material for the rather common, nicely preserved plant remains
that were entombed in the muds and silts of a Middle Miocene
lake. The fossil plants prove conclusively that some 12.6 million
years ago the ancestral Fallon, Nevada, district held a vast
oak-juniper woodland that bordered a rich mixed-conifer forest,
similar to modern plant associations found along the western
slopes of the southern Sierra Nevada in California.

Images
Of Fossil Plants

Middle Miocene Desert Peak Formation

Click on the
images for larger pictures. Here are two essentially complete
leaves from an evergreen live oak, called scientifically, Quercus
pollardiana, a species that is identical in every major delineating
leaf characteristic to the modern canyon live oak, Quercus
chrysolepis (also called a maul oak), now native to the western
slopes of the Sierra Nevada and the coastal ranges of California.
The specimen at left is a nice example of a canyon live oak leaf
with an entire, or smooth leaf margin; at right is a spinose
leaf (it bears distinctive spines that project outward from the
leaf margin) from the same oak species, Quercus pollardiana;
canyon live oaks typically produce both kinds of leaves. The
leaves of canyon live oak are among the most commonly encountered
fossil plant specimens recovered from what paleobotanists call
the Fallon Flora in the Dead Camel Range near Fallon, Nevada.
Both specimens are 30 millimeters in actual length.

Click on the
images for larger pictures. At left is a winged flying seed (samara)
from a species of spruce paleobotanists call Picea sonomensis;
it appears to most closely resemble the flying seeds produced
by the modern Brewer spruce, Picea breweriana, now native
to the Klamath Mountains of northwestern California and southwestern
Oregon; specimen is 12 millimeters long. At right is mostly complete
leaf (the stem is missing) from the canyon live oak, Quercus
pollardiana; specimen is 32 millimeters long.

For an all-text page that includes all 300 of my guitar
mp3 files placed on the Internet, go to All
Inyo All The Time. That's where you'll find access to all
of my musical selections, in order of their appearance on the
Web--from my first Cyber-CD ("The Acoustic Guitar Solitaire
Of Inyo") to the last, "Inyo 7."

Fossils
In Death Valley National Park: A site dedicated to
the paleontology, geology, and natural wonders of Death Valley
National Park; lots of on-site photographs of scenic localities
within the park; images of fossils specimens; links to many virtual
field trips of fossil-bearing interest.

Fossil
Insects And Vertebrates On The Mojave Desert, California:
Journey to two world-famous fossil sites in the middle Miocene
Barstow Formation: one locality yields upwards of 50 species
of fully three-dimensional, silicified freshwater insects, arachnids,
and crustaceans that can be dissolved free and intact from calcareous
concretions; a second Barstow Formation district provides vertebrate
paleontologists with one of the greatest concentrations of Miocene
mammal fossils yet recovered from North America--it's the type
locality for the Bartovian State of the Miocene Epoch, 15.9 to
12.5 million years ago, with which all geologically time-equivalent
rocks in North American are compared.

Fossils
At Red Rock Canyon State Park, California: Visit wildly
colorful Red Rock Canyon State Park on California's northern
Mojave Desert, approximately 130 miles north of Los Angeles--scene
of innumerable Hollywood film productions and commercials over
the years--where the Middle to Late Miocene (13 to 7 million
years old) Dove Spring Formation, along with a classic deposit
of petrified woods, yields one of the great terrestrial, land-deposited
Miocene vertebrate fossil faunas in all the western United States.

Fossil
Plants Of The Ione Basin, California: Head to Amador
County in the western foothills of California's Sierra Nevada
to explore the fossil leaf-bearing Middle Eocene Ione Formation
of the Ione Basin. This is a completely undescribed fossil flora
from a geologically fascinating district that produces not only
paleobotanically invaluable suites of fossil leaves, but also
world-renowned commercial deposits of silica sand, high-grade
kaolinite clay and the extraordinarily rare Montan Wax-rich lignites
(a type of low grade coal).

Trilobites
In The Marble Mountains, Mojave Desert, California:
Take a trip to the place that first inspired my life-long fascination
and interest in fossils--the classic trilobite quarry in the
Lower Cambrian Latham Shale, in the Marble Mountains of California's
Mojave Desert. It's a special place, now included in the rather
recently established Trilobite Wilderness, where some 21 species
of ancient plants and animals have been found--including trilobites,
an echinoderm, a coelenterate, mollusks, blue-green algae and
brachiopods.

A
Visit To Ammonite Canyon, Nevada: Explore one of the
best-exposed, most complete fossiliferous marine late Triassic
through early Jurassic geologic sections in the world--a place
where the important end-time Triassic mass extinction has been
preserved in the paleontological record. Lots of key species
of ammonites, brachiopods, corals, gastropods and pelecypods.

Late
Triassic Ichthyosaur And Invertebrate Fossils In Nevada:
Journey to two classic, world-famous fossil localities in the
Upper Triassic Luning Formation of Nevada--Berlin-Ichthyosaur
State Park and Coral Reef Canyon. At Berlin-Ichthyosaur, observe
in-situ the remains of several gigantic ichthyosaur skeletons
preserved in a fossil quarry; then head out into the hills, outside
the state park, to find plentiful pelecypods, gastropods, brachiopods
and ammonoids. At Coral Reef Canyon, find an amazing abundance
of corals, sponges, brachiopods, echinoids (sea urchins), pelecypods,
gastropods, belemnites and ammonoids.

Fossils
From The Kettleman Hills, California: Visit one of
California's premiere Pliocene-age (approximately 4.5 to 2.0
million years old) fossil localities--the Kettleman Hills, which
lie along the western edge of California's Great Central Valley
northwest of Bakersfield. This is where innumerable sand dollars,
pectens, oysters, gastropods, "bulbous fish growths"
and pelecypods occur in the Etchegoin, San Joaquin and Tulare
Formations.

Field
Trip To The Kettleman Hills Fossil District, California:
Take a virtual field trip to a classic
site on the western side of California's Great Central Valley,
roughly 80 miles northwest of Bakersfield, where several Pliocene-age
(roughly 4.5 to 2 million years old) geologic rock formations
yield a wealth of diverse, abundant fossil material--sand dollars,
scallop shells, oysters, gastropods and "bulbous fish growths"
(fossil bony tumors--found nowhere else, save the Kettleman Hills),
among many other paleontological remains.

A
Visit To The Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed, Southern California:
Travel to the dusty hills near Bakersfield, California, along
the eastern side of the Great Central Valley in the western foothills
of the Sierra Nevada, to explore the world-famous Sharktooth
Hill Bone Bed, a Middle Miocene marine deposit some 16 to 15
million years old that yields over a hundred species of sharks,
rays, bony fishes, and sea mammals from a geologic rock formation
called the Round Mountain Silt Member of the Temblor Formation;
this is the most prolific marine, vertebrate fossil-bearing Middle
Miocene deposit in the world.

Middle
Triassic Ammonoids From Nevada: Travel to a world-famous
fossil locality in the Great Basin Desert of Nevada, a specific
place that yields some 41 species of ammonoids, in addition to
five species of pelecypods and four varieties of belemnites from
the Middle Triassic Prida Formation, which is roughly 235 million
years old; many paleontologists consider this specific site the
single best Middle Triassic, late Anisian Stage ammonoid locality
in the world. All told, the Prida Formation yields 68 species
of ammonoids spanning the entire Middle Triassic age, or roughly
241 to 227 million years ago.

Fossil
Bones In The Coso Range, Inyo County, California:
Visit the Coso Range Wilderness, west of
Death Valley National Park at the southern end of California's
Owens Valley, where vertebrate fossils some 4.8 to 3.0 million
years old can be observed in the Pliocene-age
Coso Formation: It's a paleontologically significant place that
yields many species of mammals, including the remains of Equus
simplicidens, the Hagerman Horse, named for its spectacular
occurrences at Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument
in Idaho; Equus simplicidens is
considered the earliest known member of the genus Equus, whichincludes the modern horse and all other equids.

Fossil
Plants At Aldrich Hill, Western Nevada: Take
a field trip to western Nevada, in the vicinity of Yerington,
to famous Aldrich Hill, where one can collect some 35 species
of ancient plants--leaves, seeds and twigs--from the Middle Miocene
Aldirch Station Formation, roughly 12 to 13 million years old.
Find the leaves of evergreen live oak, willow, and Catalina Ironwood
(which today is restricted in its natural habitat solely to the
Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California), among
others, plus the seeds of many kinds of conifers, including spruce;
expect to find the twigs of Giant Sequoias, too.

Fossils
From Pleistocene Lake Manix, California: Explore the
badlands of the Manix Lake Beds on California's Mojave Desert,
an Upper Pleistocene deposit that produces abundant fossil remains
from the silts and sands left behind by a great fresh water lake,
roughly 350,000 to 19,000 years old--the Manix Beds yield many
species of fresh water mollusks (gastropods and pelecypods),
skeletal elements from fish (the Tui Mojave Chub and Three-Spine
Stickleback), plus roughly 50 species of mammals and birds, many
of which can also be found in the incredible, world-famous La
Brea Tar Pits of Los Angeles.

Field
Trip To Pleistocene Lake Manix, California: Go on
a virtual field trip to the classic, fossiliferous badlands carved
in the Upper Pleistocene Manix Formation, Mojave Desert, California.
It's a special place that yields beaucoup fossil remains, including
fresh water mollusks, fish (the Mojave Tui Chub), birds and mammals.

Ammonoids
At Union Wash, California: Explore
ammonoid-rich Union Wash near Lone Pine, California, in the shadows
of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United
States. Union Wash is a ne plus ultra place to find Early Triassic
ammonoids in California. The extinct cephalopods occur in abundance
in the Lower Triassic Union Wash Formation, with the dramatic
back-drop of the glacier-gouged Sierra Nevada skyline in view
to the immediate west.

Ordovician
Fossils At The Great Beatty Mudmound, Nevada: Visit a classic 475-million-year-old fossil
locality in the vicinity of Beatty, Nevada, only a few miles
east of Death Valley National Park; here, the fossils occur in
the Middle Ordovician Antelope Valley Limestone at a prominent
Mudmound/Biohern. Lots of fossils can be found there, including
silicified brachiopods, trilobites, nautiloids, echinoderms,
bryozoans, ostracodes and conodonts.

Paleobotanical
Field Trip To The Sailor Flat Hydraulic Gold Mine, California:
Journey on a day of paleobotanical discovery with the FarWest
Science Foundation to the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada--to
famous Sailor Flat, an abandoned hydraulic gold mine of the mid
to late 1800s, where members of the foundation collect fossil
leaves from the "chocolate" shales of the Middle Eocene
auriferous gravels; all significant specimens go to the archival
paleobotanical collections at the University California Museum
Of Paleontology in Berkeley.

Early
Cambrian Fossils In Western Nevada: Explore
a 518-million-year-old fossil locality several miles north of
Death Valley National Park, in Esmeralda County, Nevada, where
the Lower Cambrian Harkless Formation yields the largest single
assemblage of Early Cambrian trilobites yet described from a
specific fossil locality in North America; the locality also
yields archeocyathids (an extinct sponge), plus salterella (the
"ice-cream cone fossil"--an extinct conical animal
placed into its own unique phylum, called Agmata), brachiopods
and invertebrate tracks and trails.

Fossil
Leaves And Seeds In West-Central Nevada: Take
a field trip to the Middlegate Hills area in west-central Nevada.
It's a place where the Middle Miocene Middlegate Formation provides
paleobotany enthusiasts with some 64 species of fossil plant
remains, including the leaves of evergreen live oak, tanbark
oak, bigleaf maple, and paper birch--plus the twigs of giant
sequoias and the winged seeds from a spruce.

Fossil
Plants In The Dead Camel Range, Nevada: Visit
a remote site in the vicinity of Fallon, Nevada, where the Middle
Miocene Desert Peak Formation provides paleobotany enthusiasts
with 22 species of nicely preserved leaves from a variety
of deciduous trees and evergreen live oaks, in addition to samaras
(winged seeds), needles and twigs from several types of conifers.

Early
Triassic Ammonoid Fossils In Nevada: Visit the two
remote localities in Nevada that yield abundant, well-preserved
ammonoids in the Lower Triassic Thaynes Formation, some 240 million
years old--one of the sites just happens to be the single finest
Early Triassic ammonoid locality in North America.

Fossil
Plants At Buffalo Canyon, Nevada: Explore the wilds
of west-central Nevada, a number of miles from Fallon, where
the Middle Miocene Buffalo Canyon Formation yields to seekers
of paleontology some 54 species of deciduous and coniferous varieties
of 15-million-year-old leaves, seeds and twigs from such varieties
as spruce, fir, pine, ash, maple, zelkova, willow and evergreen
live oak

High
Inyo Mountains Fossils, California: Take a ride to
the crest of the High Inyo Mountains to find abundant ammonoids
and pelecypods--plus, some shark teeth and terrestrial plants
in the Upper Mississippian Chainman Shale, roughly 325 million
years old.

Field
Trip To The Copper Basin Fossil Flora, Nevada: Visit
a remote region in Nevada, where the Late Eocene Dead Horse Tuff
provides seekers of paleobotany with some 42 species of ancient
plants, roughly 39 to 40 million years old, including the leaves
of alder, tanbark oak, Oregon grape and sassafras.

Fossil
Plants And Insects At Bull Run, Nevada: Head
into the deep backcountry of Nevada to collect fossils from the
famous Late Eocene Chicken Creek Formation, which yields, in
addition to abundant fossil fly larvae, a paleobotanically wonderful
association of winged seeds and fascicles (bundles of
needles) from many species of conifers, including fir, pine,
spruce, larch, hemlock and cypress. The plants are some 37 million
old and represent an essentially pure montane conifer forest,
one of the very few such fossil occurrences in the Tertiary Period
of the United States.

A
Visit To The Early Cambrian Waucoba Spring Geologic Section,
California: Journey to the northwestern sector of
Death Valley National Park to explore the classic, world-famous
Waucoba Spring Early Cambrian geologic section, first described
by the pioneering paleontologist C.D. Walcott in the late 1800s;
surprisingly well preserved 540-510 million-year-old remains
of trilobites, invertebrate tracks and trails, Girvanella
algal oncolites and archeocyathids (an extinct variety of
sponge) can be observed in situ.

Fossil
Giant Sequoia Foliage From Nevada: Images of the youngest
fossil foliage from a giant sequoia ever discovered in the geologic
record--the specimen is Lower Pliocene in geologic age, around
5 million years old.